"When life gives you lemons, make lemonade."

Don’t Let Mistakes Define You

Mistakes will happen. Whether we say something rude, miss an opportunity, or indulge in too many sweets…here is a glimpse of some poor eating/exercise choices I made after a relaxing vacation and a trip to the dentist several months ago:

“Last week, after receiving raving reviews about my teeth from the dentist , I have treated myself to a pint of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream, 3 milkshakes, and Olive Garden with friends (where the waiter saw how much I liked the mints, so he brought another handful). Of course, I didn’t eat this all in one day, it has been spread out throughout this past week and a half, but still that’s a lot of treats in such a short period of time.

Hearing how great I’m doing with taking care of my teeth was awesome, but then it gave me this “Cool, now I can eat what I want” mentality. A treat is meant to be enjoyed once in a while not after every meal. A little over a month ago, I was exercising four to five days a week and eating healthy to the point where I only treated myself to a piece of dark chocolate every now and again.

I don’t know what happened, but after coming back from a very relaxing vacation, I didn’t feel like exercising as much. I have just barely begun to get back into a system of exercising more than once a week. This past month of barely exercising hasn’t been super great. I have felt sluggish and lazy. No one wants to feel that way, right?

I’m not saying to go eat a whole pizza, dozen doughnuts and gallon of ice cream. Enjoying a treat every now and again can be a positive thing.”

Those were some poor choices on my part. A little over a month ago, sweets seemed to pour into the break room at the office for about a week or two. Trying to stay hydrated, I would go up to the break room for a water bottle refill every couple of hours. Passing by those sweet treats, it seemed like they were calling my name. And so I fell. I fell into the miry pit of sugar.

All those calories I wouldn’t have had to work off… If only, I had resisted the temptation.

Once the sugary treat is eaten, that’s it. I can’t turn back time and decide not to eat the treat.

I’m talking about sugary treats here, but this applies to almost every aspect where we could mess up.

Whether it be mistakes regarding eating, exercising, what we say or do that may be hurtful, or any other mistake that we make, we shouldn’t choose to stay down after we mess up.

What are we going to do with the mistake?

Are we going to let it define us or are we going to learn from it and keep going?

Let’s determine to not let mistakes define us.

Sure, we messed up and we will mess up again, but let’s not dwell on that.